Bienvenidos a Miami

It’s probably too soon to be quoting lyrics from Will Smith’s 1997 classic Big Willie Style, but now that someone assaulted Dave Chappelle, the Chris Rock assault incident is old news.

Anyway, technically this weekend’s race is in northwest Miami, specifically Miami Gardens. But, this boy who just left 42 days of sunless Chicago has no complaints, because wherever I am right now, it’s basically 80F and sunny.

Don’t hate me because I’m tantastic, but do hate me because tonight there’s a lobster thermidor from Thomas Keller calling my name, and then a Cubano from Sanguich tomorrow for lunch. As you may know, food may be the only thing I love more than racing.

If by chance you’re in Miami for the race, some places you might want to hit are Ariete, Cote, Hutong, Phuc Yea (bone-in-brontosaurus-sized beef pho FTW), Surf Club, or Sanguich. That’s generally my itinerary and I’m sticking to it, and probably adding some jerk chicken from this place near Fort Lauderdale that my friend Titus, aka Chibbqking on IG recommends.

During the flight down here I fantasized that I will run in to Valtteri Bottas on the beach and we’ll share a bowl of porridge. This likely won’t happen. However, I’m gonna go out on a very long pier here and say Bottas is on the podium this weekend. Alfa Romeo is on fire and VB is driving like his team values him for the first time in five years.

Another thing that likely won’t happen, but in the wild predictions category, there has been a two-week gap since Imola, and if there’s ever a time for Mercedes to launch a new floor design and solve their superball bouncing car problem, this is it.  If they do, then we may see George or Lewis on the podium. If they don’t, it’s hard to envision they have any shot at the constructor’s or driver’s championships.

This is also a monster weekend for Ferrari. The spice boys, aka Red Bull, seem to have squashed the prancing horse’s early season advantage and are poised to drive away with another trophy. But, just as with Mercedes the down time between races has given the Ferrari factory in Maranello a big chance to introduce Harry Potter spells on the car. 

Carlos Sainz hopefully visited a wizard or exorcist recently and has rid himself of the early season yips.  May I suggest he join with Nicki Latifi of Williams and acquire a statue of Jobu and make an offering of Flor de Cana 25 YO rum in exchange for a race win.

These are of course all possibilities. My impossible wishes are that Kevin Magnussen gets a podium for Haas. An American F1 team winning in America would at least interrupt the news of the Stanley Cup playoffs for two minutes and elevate the sport above MTV’s The Challenge in the American sports’ pantheon. 

The craziest thing that could happen would be Lando Norris of Mclaren taking home his first win. While not as domestically favorable as a Haas win, Mclaren racing’s CEO Zak Brown is a native Angeleno, and I guarantee he’ll be buying Mitla Café tacos for everyone.  BTW, if you don’t know Mitla, they’re the small family owned 85 year old hard shell taco spot in California that Glen Bell stole the idea for Taco Bell from. It’s hard to stay mad at Glen, since at some point his thievery led to the Mexican pizza, which if you haven’t heard, is back on May 19th nationwide. If Bottas wins, I will be celebrating with at least two.

The one thing about the Miami race is it’s brand new. The drivers have all likely been doing simulators or banking extra time on the Playstation with Gran Turismo 7 (hello Jeff Galus!), but none of these guys has set a wheel on the track before this week.  Slight chance of rain plus new track means, as is the theme of this newsletter so far, anything is possible.